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Where the Science Meets the Road

“I never knew that learning science
could be so much fun!” one student said following a visit to her school by
Pitt’s Mobile Science Lab, a truck equipped as a laboratory.

“We didn’t just watch—we did the experiments ourselves right
on the truck,” a classmate added.

Part of the Pitt Department of Biological Sciences’ groundbreaking
Outreach Program, the Mobile Science Lab
brings the world-class research of the University to middle and high
schools by inviting students and teachers to roll up their sleeves and
work one-on-one with real scientists doing real science in fields like
genetics, development biology, and environmental science.

When the Mobile
Science Lab visited South Park High School in South Park, Pa., 10th graders
played the roles of disease-investigating agents responding to an outbreak of a
viral epidemic. Students analyzed DNA to identify the culprit, and the
simulation required all of their problem-solving skills to find a solution. “It
forces them to look at multiple pieces of data and try to connect them together,”
said Alison Slinskey Legg,
who directs the Outreach Program.

As part of the Phage Hunters Itegrating Research and Education (PHIRE) program, biological sciences professor Graham Hatfull
invites high school students to Pitt labs where they help to isolate
and extract DNA from bacteriophages—viruses that infect bacteria.

Another Outreach Program project, Science Mission 101, in
conjunction with local public television, pitted two teams of Pittsburgh-area
high school students against each other as they competed to unravel scientific
mysteries. The educational reality show travels the United States looking for
the next generation of scientists.

The Outreach Program’s
partners include Pitt’s Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute, the
Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse, the Lyceum Group, Thermo Fisher, and the
Pittsburgh Tissue Engineering Initiative—all working together to make education
mobile as well as exciting.